EDMONDS — You can depend on actor Melanie Calderwood to deliver a first-rate performance as sure as you can depend on getting Christmas catalogs in the mail.
And where some actors might shy away from spending two acts alone on stage, Calderwood is perfectly at ease up there, as if she owns center stage, which she does, by the way, in Edge of the World Theatre’s production of “The Belle of Amherst,” which runs through May 31.
Calderwood plays American poet Emily Dickinson. For two acts, Calderwood entertains us as if we are visiting Dickinson in her parlor, sitting back enjoying a cup of tea and being enthralled by her cutting wit, poignant stories and, of course, her poetry.
The play is set in Amherst, Mass., in 1883. Dickinson, who once referred to herself as the belle of Amherst, accepts our visit, shyly at first, but then unleashing revelations about her life and art.
Calderwood’s performance helps slay the conventional thought that Dickinson was a recluse by nature. Instead, it was a demeanor Dickinson cultivated to maintain a mysterious air. Her hermit-like ways, and always dressing in white, created the notion Dickinson was eccentric.
“It’s all on purpose,” Calderwood revealed.
Calderwood turns the light on Dickinson, exposing the poet as a highly intelligent, deeply sensitive woman who seemed to write constantly and had a high passion for words.
“Phosphorescence. There’s a word to lift your hat to.”
Dickinson also possessed a keen talent for doing deadpan impressions of the people around her. Her sarcasm launched us into spasms of laughter: “There goes Hennie. She looks more like a jar of sweetmeats every day.”
While in her parlor, we watch as Calderwood shares Dickinson’s sadness at her father’s death, at her barren love life and at her failure to be recognized as a good poet. We also learn how she questioned her faith. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary but she confessed she was in charge of the girls without hope.
“I do not feel the spirit,” Dickinson admitted to the headmistress. “I’ve read the Bible and I found it merry.”
The real beauty of this script, the genius that earned it a Tony Award, is the way Dickinson’s poems are woven into the narrative of her life. Calderwood manages to do that weaving seamlessly.
There are moments in the play where we can’t tease the verse from her thoughts. Perhaps that is how it was for Dickinson: Her poetry so overwhelmed her thinking that they became one and the same.
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